Chapters (50)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Ninteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Epilogue
- Letter From the Author
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
Henry took a big mouthful of lager, then shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, maybe. It does seem pretty crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, the amount of planning, the level of obsession required to do all the stuff you list . . . Fuck, you’d have to be some kind of maniac. Clever too.’
‘And why would she do it?’ Rachel said.
Henry’s dessert came and he shovelled it in, thinking while he chewed. ‘I don’t know. Because she wants him all for herself? Look at the people who’ve been affected: a woman he used to shag, his best friend who happens to be female, a cleaner who was apparently a real fittie before she got acid chucked in her face. Then two things have happened to stop Andrew starting his new job, where he’d be working with other women. A bag full of pictures of all his exes goes conveniently lost. Fuck, the more I think about it, the more likely it seems!’
A cold, clammy sweat had broken out across my body. I stared at Henry. He didn’t even know about the other stuff: Harriet being burgled and presents I’d given her stolen; my female friends vanishing from Facebook; my book containing nude photos going missing.
‘Is she the jealous type, this Charlie?’ Henry asked.
Before I could make my mouth work – and I was going to lie, say no, because I didn’t want to tell them – Tilly banged the table and said, ‘For fuck’s sake, this is insane!’
We all looked at her.
‘Charlie’s lovely. She’s sweet and funny and cool and she’s completely besotted with you, Andrew. To say she could be responsible for all the stuff that’s happened to you – all this random, unconnected stuff – it’s bullshit, like the ramblings of an insane conspiracy theorist. What are you going to say next, that she somehow caused your retina to detach last year?’
I shook my head weakly in the face of Tilly’s fury.
‘It’s bad luck, that’s all. The world throwing shit at you. That’s what happens in life. We had a huge pile of shit thrown at us when we were kids, killing our parents and landing me in this fucking wheelchair. And now life’s chucking crap at lots of people you know. I mean, fuck, it’s actually pretty egocentric to think it’s all down to you. The only thing that’s happened to you directly is that you slipped down some icy steps and, from what you’ve told me, Charlie was there afterwards to look after you.’ She was red in the face. ‘My God, if Charlie could hear all of this. You should be ashamed of yourself.’
I think I must have been red in the face too, but from embarrassment, not anger.
‘Well,’ said Henry, puncturing the silence that followed, moments after swallowing the last piece of pie. ‘That told us.’
Twenty-eight
Twenty-eight